Airport car parking prices and performance

According to a recently released Productivity Commission draft report, Australia’s five major airports have been found not to be misusing their market power in setting car parking and land access rates. The report, entitled ‘Economic Regulation of Airport Services’, differed from the findings of the report into airport parking prices by the Australian Competition and […]

Bendigo considering LPR monitoring technology

The City of Bendigo is considering following Melbourne’s lead and introducing electronic parking monitoring technology. According to the Bendigo Advertiser, the proposed system uses license plate recognition technology to electronically ‘chalk’ vehicles, automatically detecting vehicles that have overstayed the time restrictions in the area. The technology is part of several recommended amendments to the parking […]

Canberra developers call for review of parking requirements

Following our recent post on the establishment of the Car Parking Advisory Committee to review changes to the car parking provisions (refer to our previous article here), Canberra is the latest Australian city to be reconsidering their minimum parking requirements.  Developers are offering lower priced residential units and less traffic congestion in return for fewer […]

Davis Langdon construction sentiment survey report

The latest results from Davis Langdon’s construction sentiment survey suggest that a strong resurgence in the property and construction industry is unlikely over the course of the next year; an effect that will likely be compounded by recent global market shocks adding to the sense of investor unease. Davis Langdon’s projections show sustainability ranked number […]

New Los Angeles variable parking rates plan gets approval

Los Angeles has now followed San Francisco’s lead and has approved a pilot program that will adjust the cost of parking based on demand at various times throughout the day and the duration that motorists stay within each parking space. The program, called ExpressPark™, will use sensors and other technology to monitor around 6,000 sidewalk […]

The future of the LA meter plan?

Following from our previous post, the LA Times Cartoonist Ted Rall has provided his projection of what the future of the dynamic pricing system could have in store. The full cartoon is published below, or you can view on the LA Times site here.  Thank you to Donald Shoup for sending this to us this […]

Barcelona’s bike sharing program health benefits

Last week, we published excerpts from an article written by Chris Rissel, Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney, about the Melbourne bike sharing scheme. One of Rissel’s arguments was that the low uptake of the bike sharing schemes in Australia was in part due to the mandatory helmet laws, going on to suggest […]

Victoria reviews car parking planning provisions

Victoria’s Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD) has established the Car Parking Advisory Committee 2011 to review proposed changes to car parking provisions in the Victorian Planning Provisions and planning schemes. According to the Property Council of Australia, the proposed changes made by the DPCD are based on the recommendations of a final report […]

Are helmet laws reducing Melbourne’s bike share usage?

We recently published an article entitled ‘Why is Melbourne’s bike sharing scheme underperforming’, which explored a range of possible reasons as to why the sharing scheme is seeing underutilisation and lower than projected rider numbers. One of the reasons suggested was the compulsory helmet laws. An article published on The Conversation on August 9 by […]

Sydney bus study finds no end to the congestion

The Sydney Morning Herald published results from a report on Sydney’s bus terminus at Wynyard and the resulting congestion across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. According to the paper, released to the Herald, the report shows that the York Street bus stops, used by thousands of commuters from the northern areas of Sydney, were already operating […]

Melbourne trials pay-by-phone technology in Carlton

The City of Melbourne will be trialling pay-by-phone technology in the Carlton area, allowing customers to pay using their mobile phones at on-street metered spaces. This is another step in the project announced earlier this year by the City of Melbourne to employ modern technologies to more effectively manage its on-street parking bays and improve […]

Newcastle considers variable car parking pricing

Newcastle City Council is currently considering a number of new on-street paid parking measures, including the possible introduction of a flexible pricing strategy, similar to the SFPark system currently being trialled in San Francisco. The new parking strategy is being driven by increased congestion in the city, and includes an extension of paid parking until […]

Proposed revised public transport model for Sydney

A report released by the Tourism Transport Forum has recommended that Sydney’s complex and unreliable public transport timetables should be scrapped and replaced by frequent peak-period bus, train and ferry services. According to the Daily Telegraph, the report recommends a major investment in technology to provide real-time information for commuters, with simple SMS texts and […]

New York to create a pedestrian wayfinding system

This week, New York City’s Department of Transportation announced that they were planning to add signage to the streets to help pedestrians navigate the city more easily. The wayfinding system will provide clear signs that tell people their location, how long it takes to walk to key locations and gives a map of the area. […]

Colliers North America car parking rates survey 2011

Colliers have just released their North America statistics from their car parking rates survey. As a whole, parking rates did not increase or registered little change over the past twelve months, reflecting the uneven nature of the economic recovery. This is across both daily and monthly parking rates, although daily rates saw a modest increase […]

Electric vehicles face challenges despite infrastructure roll out

A report released by the Boston Consulting Group questions the ‘dominance’ of the electric vehicle era, arguing that internal combustion engines will continue to improve enough to cut CO2 emissions and enable automakers to hit their 2020 emission targets. Whilst they acknowledge that automakers will need to improve across a number of areas, including vehicle […]

Car park challenge game

We thought we would finish this week’s blog with a little bit of fun. Australian road insurance company NRMA has released a ‘car park challenge’ game for budding iPhone finger parkers. Interestingly, if you scrape or crash your car whilst parking, the damage that you do to you car is able to be estimated, pulling […]

Europe moves towards reducing cars in cities

Cristina Lynn, Parking & Traffic Consultants’ Managing Partner, is currently attending the World Parking Symposium in Canada, presenting a research paper on ‘How do Australian cities manage parking?’ Her research and presentation is in part based on a comparison with research developed by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy in New York. You can […]

Sydney’s transport solution may lay underground

Over the past two weeks, we have discussed the new precinct of Barangaroo on the Wayfinding Forum, and the resulting affect of the increased commuter numbers on the infrastructure in Sydney’s CBD. One of the key concerns for the project is the commuter hub of Wynyard; with the existing train station due to reach capacity […]

Brisbane’s Westfield Chermside introduces paid parking

Last week, Brisbane’s Westfield Chermside shopping centre announced plans to introduce paid parking. The shopping centre, previously providing free, unlimited parking, will now introduce paid parking for parking durations of over three hours, in a bid to stop commuters taking up spaces meant for shoppers.  According to the Courier Mail, this will be the first […]

Mackay introduces paid monthly parking permits

Mackay Regional Council has recently announced the development of an online paid parking system, allowing customers to pre-purchase their parking permits. The permits apply for off-street car parking in five car parks in the CBD, and are available for periods of one, three, six or twelve months.   You can view the announcement on the […]

Barangaroo – errata corrige

During the week, we were contacted by Lend Lease in regards to our blog post last week about Barangaroo, titled ‘Sydney’s Barangaroo precinct faces transportation challenges‘. As a result, we would like to take the time to publish several points conveyed to us by Lend Lease’s communications team in relation to our post. First of all, […]

Colliers global parking rate survey 2011

Following the release of the North American parking rates two weeks ago, Colliers this week released their global parking rates survey results. Melbourne has now overtaken Sydney as the world’s third most expensive place to park based on daily rates, at US$69.53 ($64.23) a day, while Sydney was fourth at US$67.42. Only Copenhagen and Oslo […]

Sydney’s Barangaroo precinct faces transportation challenges

According to NSW’s Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, Sydney’s $6 billion Barangaroo development is at ‘considerable risk’, due to inadequate transport and lower-than-expected developer contributions. Wynyard Railway Station, which is expected to handle up to 63% of the commuters to the waterfront development is likely to reach capacity by 2017. The additional 14,300 predicted commuters won’t be […]

Congestion pricing – is it an option?

The Victorian Government has confirmed that it is not considering a congestion tax for Melbourne’s gridlocked roads, despite a submission by Acil Tasman (an economic consulting firm) proposing charging cars and trucks each time they enter the CBD and inner suburbs, saying the money could be used to improve roads and public transport. According to […]

Enforcing New York City’s bike lane laws

Further to the previous article, increased usage of bicycles in New York City has resulted in the New York Police Department now stepping up enforcement of the rules and regulations governing the use of bicycles and the lanes throughout the city. We came across this video this week which highlights some of the challenges that […]

Perth free off-street car parking set to disappear

  The City of Perth announced this week the introduction of paid parking in the remaining four free Perth car parks: Victoria Gardens and Mardalup Park in East Perth, Heirisson Island and John Oldham Park on Mounts Bay Road. City of Perth’s proposed fees will range from $1.90 an hour at Heirisson Island to $3 […]

Google Wallet’s potential effect on parking industry infrastructure

Google launched a product this week called ‘Google Wallet’ which uses ‘Near Field Communication’ (NFC) technology to enable secure credit card payments using a mobile phone. With Google Wallet, customers will be able to add their existing credit cards to the platform. Google Wallet can be locked via multiple levels of security, including a phone […]

…as India also considers their car parking requirements

The Wayfinding Forum’s ‘shadow author’ recently visited India on a fact finding mission to examine the parking situation in Mumbai. Both the photo above and the video below were captured by our correspondent whilst on location. As you can see, both traffic and parking are growing problems in the city, and we expect that this […]

Sydney car parking rates set to rise

Sydney City Council have released detailed income forecasts showing that on-street parking costs are set to increase from $6 to $7 per hour, delivering an additional $1.9 million next financial year, alongside plans to increase revenue from car parks by up to 30 per cent to $58.8 million in 10 years. According to a news […]


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